Indeed. And this quote is priceless:

> As one Senator said in voting against the [1888] bill [to recognize foreign copyrights]: “An international copyright is simply a monopoly … what is known as protection, or taxing the people to make a few persons rich … It seems to me that there can be no excuse for carrying this restriction upon human knowledge.”

It was a gradual process. Also, for context, it wasn't until the mid-late 1800s that private corporations were legitimized in the US. Corporate charters needed to specify what public interest they'd serve. Canal and railroad corporations were the first. And it wasn't that long before railroad corporations has bought the government. So it goes.

Ecomist Ha-Joon Chang (Cambridge University) makes this point quite eloquently in several of his books, notably Bad Samatarians, which rather convincingly guts free-trade rhetoric.

It is a curious coincidence how the effective final day of public domain in the US demarcates the public domain Sherlock Holmes (England) from the perpetually-copyrighted Mickey Mouse (US).

I find it kind of offensive how Disney has been putting Steamboat Willie on its opening credits, recently seen in Zootopia, flaunting its perpetual copyright in our faces.

In fairness, Disney would be able to do this whether the character remained sequestered or not; nobody else can, though- what a shame.

The fact is that if you're not making money off these characters, you can do whatever the hell you want. If you are making money and you can keep it fairly anonymous, you can still do whatever you want.

you mean in obscurity, because whether or not a yt acc is anonymous, disney can have it censored.

Unsurprisingly, countries that produce more content than they import have tended to adopt strong copyright laws, whereas net importers of works have typically espoused views like those of the senator qouted in the sibling comment.

This sounds like a good application of the [Citation Needed] tag. At least it calls for some examples, rather than a sweeping generalization.

Nations act in their self interest. Why would one need a citation to confirm that?

Because we are trying to have a rational discussion. And it's possible that "Nations act in their self interest" is often wrong, or is not well defined.

For example, if a Guatemalan dictator commits genocide against its own people and is benevolent to the United Fruit Company ... is that "Nation acting in its self interest"? It's not a clear cut question. Equally it's not clear that the behavior of corporations, dictators or governments regarding copyright at different times in history is simple "self interest".

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d'%C3%A9t...

Not just copyrights, the US ignored patents too. And that played a significant role in the industrial revolution.

Even as late as the 1950s, Jim Baen could publish Tolkien in the US without permission because copyrights weren't properly registered.

I remember both Charles Dickens and Gilbert & Sullivan having quite the problem with this in the States. The opera Pirates of Penzance was first performed in New York rather than London in an attempt to establish copyright in the U.S., but according to Wikipedia the attempt was unsuccessful.

I remember a section in my high school text book noting that we literally stole some textile machinery from the British.

Another reason to laugh at the judical system.